RESIDENTS in Royal Wootton Bassett say they were astounded this week after a presentation on plans for a long-awaited restructure of junction 16 offered no changes to help ease traffic around the town.

The developers leading the £11.5m overhaul of the junction, which links Royal Wootton Bassett, Swindon, and Wroughton to the M4, delivered an information-only presentation to the planning committee of the Royal Wootton Bassett Town Council.

The design plans for the junction, which were approved 10 years ago following consultations with the Highways Agency, Swindon Council and Wiltshire Council – all of which own different parts of the land the junction is on – have spelled out years of misery for residents in the rural towns and villages west of the junction.

All three authorities are heavily involved in the project, since while Swindon Council is managing the development, the junction sits on land inside the Wiltshire Council boundary, and the bridges and sliproads along with the motorway are owned and managed by the Highways Agency.

The overhaul of the junction was a condition made as part of the redevelopment of Wichelstowe in order to cope with the expected high volumes of new traffic.

The design will mean shortening the existing roundabout and, in that extra space, creating a criss-cross section so drivers coming to and from Wroughton can head straight onto the M4 and drivers coming off the M4 can head straight to Wootton Bassett, rather than having to go around the entire junction.

The idea is to increase the capacity of the roundabout to cope with the expected traffic from the Wichelstowe development – which will ultimately have up to 4,500 new homes.

But councillors said there seemed to be no improvements to the Royal Wootton Bassett exit, which already comes to a standstill during rush hour with traffic backing up along the High Street, some three miles away.

Paul Heaphy, chairman of the Royal Wootton Bassett Town Council planning committee, said: “I think it was really good of them to come in and deliver. It wasn’t an easy message to bring, and we really do appreciate their time.

“The difficulty is we are looking at the plans and we can see how it might actually make the junction worse, and we’re thinking about all this public money going into this for no improvement.

“It may be that there’s something we don’t quite understand about the plans – maybe it will improve the junction – but at the moment I can see us probably having two years’ worth of major disruption with people trying to get to and from work.

“Then they’ll try to find alternative routes and it will begin to impact the roads around Lydiard Millicent and Broad Hinton – roads which simply aren’t made to have that volume of traffic and which children walk along because there are no pavements.”

Despite remaining incredulous, however, the councillors are aware that, at this stage, there is very little that can be done to alter the plans.

A spokesman for Swindon Council said: “The plans for Junction 16 were approved nearly 10 years ago, and the issues have been thoroughly discussed over the years.

“Swindon Council, in consultation with the Highways Agency and Wiltshire Council, will be managing the improvements to the junction and the project team were invited by Royal Wootton Bassett Town Council to update them on progress.”

A Wiltshire Council spokesman said: “We are working closely with Swindon Borough Council and other partners to help deliver these proposed improvements which we believe will enable further growth in Swindon and Wiltshire.”